Ernst Barlach. Facets of Love at the Edwin Scharff Museum Neu-Ulm


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Ernst Barlach and the Many Faces of Love
The Edwin Scharff Museum in Neu-Ulm dedicates an evocative special exhibition to Ernst Barlach. Ernst Barlach. Facets of Love takes visitors through a multifaceted universe of feelings, where romantic affection, longing, temptation, maternal love, charity, and grief become visible. On Saturday, October 3, 2026, the exhibition is open from 10:00 AM to 6:00 PM.
An Exhibition Between Sculpture, Drawing, and Literature
Ernst Barlach, who lived from 1870 to 1938, appears here as a sculptor, draftsman, and author with extraordinary sensitivity to human relationships. His plastic and graphic works do not speak of an idealized love, but of an existential experience that connects intimacy and loss, comfort and desire.
The curation combines selected exhibits with poetic texts. This creates an aesthetic experience in which image, material, and language enter into dialogue with each other. Barlach's reduced forms, the concentrated posture of his figures, and the quiet expressive power of his sculptures open up an intense examination of the works.
From Intimate Closeness to the Dark Side of Love
The exhibition shows the entire range of Barlach's engagement with the theme. The Kiss Group III from 1921 makes physical closeness palpable in a compact bronze sculpture. The Lovers from 1917/18 give the graphic line a restrained, almost floating intimacy.
With The Matchmaker II from 1920, the social and ambivalent dimension of love also comes into focus. Barlach addresses seduction, commercial love, and vulnerability without sentimental embellishment. Maternal love, unconditional charity, and the grief for a loved one also find their place in this art-historically rich presentation.
A Dialogue with Edwin Scharff
Isolated juxtapositions with works by Edwin Scharff make the similarities and differences between the two contemporaries visible. The exhibition invites comparisons of different images of humanity, forms of expression, and concepts of closeness. Thus, the presentation becomes not only an exhibition of Barlach but also an art-historical investigation of body, relationship, and empathy.
Cultural Education and Accompanying Tours
The accompanying program deepens the exhibition through art-historical and literary tours. In the literary format, Barlach’s own texts are combined with works of expressionist contemporaries. Language, sound, and sculpture enter a common resonance space and open new accesses to longing, inner truthfulness, and human connectedness.
The exhibition was created in cooperation with the Ernst Barlach Museums Güstrow. The curator is Franziska Hell, M.A. from the Ernst Barlach Museums Güstrow. This connects scientific classification with an immediately experiential exhibition atmosphere.
Conclusion: An Art Experience About Closeness, Loss, and Humanity
Ernst Barlach. Facets of Love awaits visitors with a concentrated encounter of sculpture, drawing, literature, and art-historical reflection. Those who experience Barlach's silent forms, his emotionally condensed figures, and the poetic language of his works live will discover love as a universal theme of human existence. A visit to the Edwin Scharff Museum enriches cultural education and creates space for a lasting aesthetic experience.
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